Thursday, July 9, 2015

Gift Card Rescue Responds

The email Gift Card Rescue sent to me and others threatened to keep the gift cards as a donation if they weren't verified within 30 days. You were also required to send in a picture of your ID and sign a contract after you've already sent in your gift cards with seemingly no recourse other than to "donate" your cards.

First of all, check out Miles to Memories who posted a similar (but even better) PSA.

The Issues

There are a few issues here.

One is that their requirements are pretty intense. I understand proof of purchase, they don't want to get burned on the sale. Why do they need address verification? As long as you can prove you bought them, that's what should matter. This would alleviate the requirement to send in my Driver's License. Never had that issue with another seller.

I've had dealings with Junkcard and when they required proof of purchase, this is what they sent me:

If documentation cannot be provided, we must take one of the following precautions for security purposes. Please let us know how you'd like to proceed.
1. We can hold payment up to 45 days from the post mark date on your package,
2. If transaction history is available, we can hold payment up to 45 days from the activation date of your card(s), or
3. We can return the card(s) to you
A payment date will be assigned once we hear back from you if you opt to await payment.

Junkcard doesn't threaten to keep the cards. They will either delay payment to you so they don't get burned or they will return it to you. That's sensible. Even tough they didn't tell me ahead of time that I was going to have to wait 45 days, I still understand. Not the biggest deal in the world. You need float to play this game.

Gift Card Rescue claims they can't send it back for liability purposes. I don't know what that means. What liability? More liability than we take when we send the gift cards to you and you can claim you never got them?

They also claim that they will send the gift cards back if you provide a self addressed envelope. How does that solve the liability issue? I can't understand.

In addition, their email does not mention at any point that this is possible. I would be less concerned if I knew I could get my gift card back if I didn't want to comply with sending a picture of my license.

On top of it all, they never tell you anything of this until your cards are already with them. I probably would have taken 79% instead of 80% if I knew I would have to do this.

Bottom line is that I still have to recommend that you don't send in your cards to Gift Card Rescue. I've had great dealing with Raise, Cardpool, ABC Gift Cards, SaveYa, Gift Card Zen, Monster Gift Card and Junkcard. Their is always someone else out there with better customer service and comparable rates.